Tennessee Living

About the Author - Anthony Kimbrough

Family Security columnist Anthony Kimbrough is vice president, government relations for Tennessee Farmers Insurance Cos.

Has he lost his mind!?

That was the general reaction earlier this year when a man who makes more money playing in a single football game than most people make in a year survived a scary motorcycle crash. And certainly no one moved Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh’s Super Bowl-winning quarterback, to the front of the class when they learned he was not wearing a helmet when he crashed his geared-for-speed motorcycle.

In colliding with a car at a busy intersection, Roethlisberger escaped with a concussion and multiple facial fractures, including a broken nose and a broken upper and lower jaw. The fact that he was not at fault for the accident helps his cause somewhat, I suppose, but not near enough for me to remove the incident from a top 10 list of Stupid Things a Grown Millionaire Football Player Should Not Do.

Let’s think about this for a moment. Here is a 24-year-old man with a $40 million, six-year contract to play professional football for the Pittsburgh Steelers. And he is very good, all-pro kind of good. It’s not rocket science here – he’s paid that kind of money because his arms (particularly his throwing arm), his legs and his athletic skills are exceptional on the football field.

Big Ben can expect to have a 10- to 15-year professional career, barring a serious injury. After that, provided he makes better financial decisions than he does recreational decisions, he would never have to work another day in his life and still live richer than 99 out of 100 folks. And he could ride motorcycles to his heart’s content, without a helmet and while standing on his head, if he chose.

But Ben Roethlisberger made a personal decision; he had that choice. (Helmets, by the way, aren’t required by law for adults in Pennsylvania.) However, he took a risk that the majority of us, given the same situation, simply would not take. Too much at risk, we would reason.

It’s ironic that many folks fail to follow the same logic when insurance companies take similar positions every single day.

At Farm Bureau Insurance, it is our job to take risks and divide them across a broad group of customers. As the risks within that group grow, and the resulting claims from those risks occur, then the cost for providing coverage grows for everyone.

For those of you with homeowners insurance with our company, do you want us to insure swimming pools with no fences around them? Do you want us to write liability coverage for certain dog breeds that have a higher incident rate for bites and attacks? For those with automobile coverage with us, do you want us to begin insuring drivers without ever looking at their driving records?

Your answer to any of those questions cannot be “yes,” unless it also means you are willing to pay higher rates than you pay today.

We have said it in this space before, but it bears repeating again: An insurance company could probably write a policy to cover anything and everything that might happen, but no one could afford it. At Farm Bureau Insurance, we really believe our policyholders expect us to be responsible in managing the risks we take, because doing so determines the prices they pay.

And unless you have a Big Ben kind of salary, cost does matter. 

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Magazine:
Tennessee Home & Farm, Summer 2010 Edition Edition

Headline:
Is Big Ben Crazy?

Summary:
Football player teaches a lesson in risk-taking.

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